Waiting for the Storm
by odds fish
Summary: Something is wrong in the Imperial City. (dumb oneshot)


written a long time ago

Waiting for the Storm

"Well now. A pretty little Wood Elf. A little far from the forest, aren't we? Looks like your days of woodland frolicking have come to a _tragic end_."

Alin sat up as straight as she could on the tiny stool they had given her. Her back to the cell door, she concentrated her gaze on the filthy stones in the wall and tried not to pay the bored Dunmer behind her any heed.

He wasn't making it easy.

"To go from the gladed realm of Valenwood to a rat-infested hole like this - how very sad. Those walls must feel like they're closing in on you."

She had always been rather irritated by these misconceptions the other races had about native Bosmer. As if there were no _rooms_ in Valenwood, no walls. What a ridiculous notion. And as for rats... well, rats were delicious. Dunmer had strange ideas about food. In any case, Alin wasn't listening to this.

"Pretty soon you'll go mad-" (if she were going to go mad, she thought, it certainly wouldn't be because of the godsdamn _walls_ )- "and the guards will cut your throat just to stop the ranting." (Sorry, _whose_ ranting?)

"That's right," her Dunmer friend continued. "You're going to die in here, Wood Elf. Die!"

She had half a mind to ask him if he greeted everyone this way, but she remembered her keen interest in the filth on the masonry and turned her attention back towards it. _Die_ in here. The _idea_...

She had to admit, though, that this was not the best time she could have picked to get arrested. Nothing had _happened_ , but the City was... not right. True enough, the City had never been quite right (she thought back to the cities of Valenwood, alive as anything, sap pulsing like blood through their towers and corridors, nothing like this dead stone remnant of a violent past), but it was different now. Something in the air, the way your gut tensed for no reason at all, a cloud of foreboding that hung over the City even as the sun shone brightly.

It wasn't hard to puzzle out what it was. The Emperor was getting old. Everyone knew that Uriel had strengthened Cyrodiil's hold on Tamriel more than any emperor before him, and though his heirs seemed capable enough, the fear remained that with the Emperor would go the Empire. So there was that.

Why had she got herself arrested in the City, of all places? If the people here were nervous, the Watch was practically in crisis mode. And what had they bagged her for? Unruly behavior... illicit gambling. Illicit gambling! So she had been a little drunk. So she had bet a little stupidly on that last arena match (she coulda _swore_ that crazy Breton's day had come, but nooo). So she'd knocked over some tables and pissed off an off-duty watchman, who, by the way, had been "illicitly gambling" too. So they throw her in here, because she was (despite living here in Cyrodiil for past couple decades) a touch foreign-sounding - here, in the deepest darkest dungeon in the entire bloody City, for unruly behavior and illicit gambling.

 _The walls, Alin, look at the walls_.

So fate had been cruel to her, and here she was, locked in the Bastion. She _wasn't_ going to die here. The Emperor wasn't dead yet, there was no civil war as of a few hours ago when they'd locked her in, and it was definitely too early for them to be executing foreign insurgents. She _was_ still a citizen, not some godsforsaken Akaviri.

In the meantime though... She sighed. Prison company is never the best. And her cell _was_ rather on the small side...

Suddenly she tensed. There was the creak of a gate opening upstairs. Voices, the clank of armor, the _thunk, thunk, thunk_ of boots on the steps. The guards wanted something. Her new friend decided some more of his comforting words were in order.

"Hear that? The guards are coming. For you!" He collapsed into peals of rather fake laughter.

 _They can't be. I will survive this. I am_ not _going to die here_. Alin turned back around and approached the gate of her cell, trying to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately her cell was on the wrong side of the corridor and she couldn't see them coming down the stairs, but the voices were getting louder.

"...don't know that. The messenger only said they were attacked."

"No, they're dead, I know it."

"My job right now is to get you to safety."

The speakers shuffled into the torchlight. She didn't recognize the first three of them, and their armor was unfamiliar to her... but the fourth... the fourth could only be Emperor Uriel himself.

 _Gods above, what is going on?_

They stopped just outside her cell door. Their backs were to her, and they seemed to be staring at her Dunmer friend.

"What's this prisoner doing here?" said the woman. "This cell is supposed to be off-limits!"

One of the other guards mumbled some excuse or other. The woman barked some orders at the Dunmer prisoner, and as he backed across his cell she unlocked the gate.

And there it was again - that pang in her gut, that sense of foreboding. That tense calm before the storm. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Alin stared as the guards opened a secret door in the other cell, watched as the first of them began to file through it, saw the Dunmer's calculating grin as he realized what had just happened.

And she stood transfixed as the Emperor turned back, perhaps intending only a momentary glance behind him, but as he caught her eye a look of... what was it? Comprehension? Sadness? Hope? -spread across his face.

"You..." he murmured.

But it was only a moment after all, as the guards ushered him on and out of sight.

The Dunmer paused to gloat before departing. Alin heard none of it. Quietly she turned around, sat on the tiny stool, and counted the stones in the wall. She waited for the storm to break.


End file.
